Every business wants website traffic and leads that generate into conversions. The secret to attaining these goals is business blogging. Unlike a static website, blogs have continual, updated information focused on specific keywords and topics. Search engines like Google read blogs to learn about the site’s information and points searchers to relevant blogs. While searchers don’t subscribe to blogs, they find them online while researching. For example, internet users may do a search on cameras and wind up buying one from a company who publishes a blog with content on new cameras and provides a link to its website.
Blogging helps you drive more traffic to your website. The more you blog, the more opportunities you have to get your website discovered online. As a format, each blog post has a new URL to be indexed by the search engines. That equates to more pages and more opportunities to be ranked in search and found by folks that don’t even know your company exists. It’s simple math. Fifty blog posts add up to 50 more opportunities for potential customers. Not only does blogging bring in more traffic, it brings in targeted traffic. It tailors to an audience that is already interested in your product or service. All around, blogging gives you more visibility in the Search Engine Results Page (SERPS).
Business blogging helps establish trust with potential customers. With blog content focused on unbiased, interesting, and relevant topics, you can poise your company as a trusted business partner and solution provider. It’s an opportunity to set yourself up as an industry leader and connect people to your brand. Let others know your company’s vision, culture, and corporate standards. The bottom line is that people buy from people whom they know and trust. Blogging puts you in that arena.
While traffic and trust are great, it’s really the leads that open up opportunities to sell and convert. Add a call-to-action with discounts or free e-books in the blog, and you’re on your way to garnering a new customer down the road.
Blogging is a marketing strategy that keeps on delivering. Once you’ve published a blog post, it’s out there forever brings in new traffic and leads, even old posts that were published years ago. And people share both new and old blog posts on social media platforms. Unlike Pay Per Click (PPC), the traffic and leads don’t turn off. It’s an investment that continues to perform and pay back even when you’re sleeping or on vacation. Keep blog posting and create a diverse portfolio that provides consistent returns.
The stats are in on blogging as an inbound marketing strategy. According to Hubspot’s 2012 Inbound Marketing Report, “57 percent of businesses with a blog indicate acquiring customers from their blog.” Many view business blogging as a vital component of their marketing strategy. From a practical view, blogging just makes good sense. With little effort and cost, you can build trust, ramp up search engine rankings, increase website traffic and develop relationships with potential and current customers. It’s a great opportunity to convert traffic into leads and conversions.
